What has me (and my unknowledgable perfectionist self) wondering is that the MQA rendering is ‘only’ blue instead of purple. Is that due to something I’ve done wrong or because the Dragonfly has subpar rendering capabilities? It is set to ‘rendering only’ in the DAC settings as suggested by Roon.
That is normal. Technically it is no longer ‘bit perfect’ because the signal has been processed in a way that is different from what was originally in the file. In this case, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is a degraded sound path, it is just different.
If you employ Digital Signal Processing you see the same thing. In this case the listening experience is demonstrably ‘improved’ in terms of room response, but it is a different signal from the original signal in the file.
Since you brought up MQA, it is almost inevitable there will be ensuing rants on the subject. But you aren’t doing anything wrong.
